Ai
by Sleepless Poet
Summary: Sell the farm? How dare you even consider it! This land has been in our family for over a hundred years, and this is how you repay our ancestors? By doing them the disservice of squandering the ground consecrated with their toil, blood, and soul? Why can you not understand that I'm willing to throw that noose of a "career" into the wind if it were in sacrifice for something I love?


**Author's Note: Wow, it's been quite some time since I've played Harvest Moon, but somehow I find myself once again drawn back into it. Since it has been so long, please do bear with me as I try to remember all of the characters from this game. I do, of course, remember my favorite bachelor (about whom this fanfiction is about), Jin. Speaking of him, he will probably show up in the next chapter, as this one was more about Angela's character development. I tried to make her a real person and not some generic game protagonist, so hope you enjoy! As always, critiques, comments, and reviews are more than welcome.**

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

Dreamer

A chilly, early spring breeze blew across the field, ruffling the stubbly blades of grass and swaying them like the fluid bodies of dancers. The ground was cold, wet from the morning's rain, and Angela's body sank into the muddy mire. The soil was nearly ready to nurse the seeds of a new harvest. Wait a week, at most, she guessed, before starting to plant. Mother Nature lent loose lips to farmers' ears, most times, but neither was it rare for her to keep secrets. A surprise, belated freeze could still come, even this late into the season, snapping the infant life cradled in the ground. Laying on her back, she pat the grass-covered mud with a hand, as one would a dog. Mother Nature was many things—friend, provider, nurturer—but pet was not one of them. That was what was wrong with so many farmers today, foolishly thinking that _they_ controlled a land on which they were simply tenets. Yes, that was many farmers, but not Angeline Johnson, and not her parents, either.

Beside her, Forest whinnied, her hooves coming close enough to her gloved fingers that she deigned to move them. She sat up as voices drifted to her from up the hill, carried down into the valley on wind struggling to shake off its winter chill and a damp gray sky. Not bothering to wipe the squishy muck off her clothes, she stood up, her thick, knee-high boots squelching in the mud. Forest nuzzled her nose against her arm, asking for affection. Shaking her head in amusement—_spoiled horse—_she rubbed the top of her head.

"I shouldn't give you the time of day, after what you just did," Angela said, trying to glare at the beast but breaking into a giggle not long after.

"Ajay, were you injured?" Her brother's voice was the first to reach her down in the valley, and he came running ungracefully along behind it. He was wearing only tennis shoes, and ones that hardly had traction enough for a sidewalk, let alone a hilly country, so he tripped when they became tangled in the unforgiving mud. She tried to disguise a laugh when he finally made it to her, almost pitching face-forward if she hadn't steadied him. _Silly city boy._

Well, technically, she was a city girl, too, but she neither acted nor fitted the part.

"I'm perfectly unharmed, Angelo." They were twins, yet he invariably took it upon himself to play the role of older, protective brother. Where he picked up the notion that _she_ needed watching over was a mystery beyond even her.

"Blood is seeping through your jacket." He pointed at her left sleeve, and turning it toward her, she understood his cause for concern.

The fabric of her coat had ripped, exposing her thin shirtsleeves to the icy wind. Blood showed easily through the light colored clothing, as did traces of a long wound running from wrist to elbow.

"Oh. I thought my arm felt a little strange." Pulling a switchblade out of her back pocket, she cut off a strip from the already damaged coat and wrapped it around the wound, tying it up tightly. "Nothing a little peroxide and gauze can't fix, I'm sure," she said, waving away the man's protests.

"Angeline!"

The voices and figures that effortlessly glided down the hill were not so easily placated as her brother.

"Mom, Dad, before you worry, I'm not hurt," Angela said, subtly shifting her bandaged arm behind her back. "See?" She gave them a thumbs-up with her other hand.

Moving to her side, Angelo nudged her bad arm, and she involuntarily winced. Turning to glare at him, she was preparing the cruelest verbal barrage her vocabulary afforded her when their parents intervened. _Damn. _They were always the ones who saved Angelo's hide back when they were kids, and, to her frustration, nothing had changed now.

"Now, Angeline," her mother began, and, having heard the lecture enough times to be able to repeat it verbatim, Angela tried not to roll her eyes. "Angelo is right to look after you, but I'll delay that conversation until you're patched up. Come on, let's see that arm."

Groaning under her breath, she showed the makeshift bandage to her mother. "I will handle it myself, Mom." When the woman fussed at the dressings, loosening them as she tried to peek inside, Angela added, "_I insist._"

"Your mother is justified in pressing you as she does, Angela." The quiet, deep timber of her father cut through the frantic chaos of her overly-worried brother and mother, bringing some semblance of calm to the situation, for which she was grateful. "That wound is nothing to scoff at. You were thrown off a horse. It's fortunate that your injuries were not more serious."

Pressing her lips into a paper-thin line, Angela said nothing. _I was a fool to think they would change. _A part of her, albeit not a very large one, still wondered why her own family had always been able to upset her so, when they meant her only the best. Though it had taken her the majority of her adolescence to accept it, she understood, where they did not, that their best interests were not hers. They saw their doting as an expression of love. Angela saw it as a limitation, a patronizing leash fit for a child, not a woman; a pet, not a creation of untamable nature.

"I don't know how many times I've told you to quit riding that horse without a saddle," her mother said, tying the cloth closed again now that she had satisfied herself as to the extent of her daughter's injuries. "If you keep fooling around, you'll wind up getting yourself killed."

Angela wanted to say, _I don't deserve to put a saddle on Forest any more than I have the right to put a collar on Mother Earth. _She wanted to say, _I'm okay with dying if I'm able to live free of this chain_. But none of them would listen, or, if they did, then it would be just long enough to call her crazy. Long enough to judge her but not long enough to understand. No human ever listened for that long. Perhaps that was why she preferred Mother Nature as a companion in parley.

"Chelsea, you've scolded her enough. Let the kids enjoy their visit." Her father slipped his arm around her mother's waist, bringing her to his side. If anyone could quell her wrath, it was him, but there were times aplenty when even he failed. "They didn't come to be lectured, and they are much too old for it anyhow."

"Nonsense. As long as Angela continues to behave like a pigheaded child, I will continue to treat her as such," her mother quipped.

Gritting her teeth in an attempt to restrain herself, Angela soon realized she could remain silent no longer. Without her consent, though she could not say she objected, her barbed words pried their way out of her harshly frowning lips. "The only recalcitrant one out of the pair of us is the woman who refuses to accept that females might have a place in this society besides beneath the feet of their husbands!"

Immediately, Angela regretted the harm she caused, the severe tone she used, the argument she felt compelled to dredge from the sedimentary soil of the past, when her mother swayed in her father's arms, when Angelo gasped out her name and arms from both the men shot out to support her. Somehow, after all this time, Angela managed to discover the vulnerable underbelly of her draconic mother, and, where she had assumed her altercation would simply bounce off the woman's thick skull as usual, instead it almost seemed as though it cracked her. Not affected, not penetrated—no, for still even now she would not understand—but broken.

"Let's take her in the house."

Helping their father to support their mother, Angelo paused to look back at Angela, giving her a glare that left them parting ways with the weight of his disappointment upon her heart.

Sighing, cursing herself, she soothed Forest until she would allow her on her back. Right now, they did not want or need their misfit daughter, let alone her help, and neither did she think it wise to be in the presence of her conformist family. So, she did as she always did when she sought respite from civilization. She visited the ground stable beneath her feet, the sky majestic above her eyes, the animals neighborly by her side. More than any of those things, she visited her friend.

She and Forest rode among the as yet uncultivated acres of fields, and only with effort did they extricate themselves from paradise and bother to look back.

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><p>The damp, wrung-out-rag sky of the morning yielded into the crisp, burnt-out-bonfire of the evening, oranges, reds, yellows, and pinks smoking up the sky like the billows that overflowed from her father's pipes. Evening was well into its course, and, indeed, sputtering and dying, by the time Angela returned Forest to the stables, slipped off her muddy boots and leather gloves, and entered the house. In truth, she saw it as more of a cottage, such was the warm, domestic glow it had exuded all of her life. As she walked in, that glow seemed absent now. The lights in the living room and dining room were off, and darkness further seeped in on a nighttime breeze from the open windows. Heavy-hearted, Angela trudged upstairs to her old bedroom and bath to at least make herself presentable for whatever awaited her. As she showered, she tried not to contemplate the oddity that had overcome her mother. Instead, she made herself focus on the aquatic beat that strummed against her back as regularly as a nervous man taps his fingers; on the trails of water that flowed down dirt-brown into the drain as they cleansed away the grime, but not the actions; on the shampoo frothing pleasantly in her cropped, auburn hair. When she was finished, she gave cursory attention to her wound and dressed in nicer clothes, the few outfits that she had packed for the time she spent away from the fields. The clingy leggings didn't offer her the same comforting protection as did her chaps, and, for someone who took no issue with laying in the mud, the gently frilly, decorated patterns of her indoor shirts felt worlds out of place.<p>

"Angeline."

Angelo only called her that when he was upset. She continued to stare at the memories around her room, the overflow of stuffed animals and books scattered haphazardly about, the photographs of her friends—human and naturalistic—the words she had written herself in stories and diaries. A story, a giggle or a tear, behind each and everything in this place, but that was not something she wanted to dig for at the moment. Apparently, she had unearthed enough of a mess already with her arguments.

"Dinner."

Stocking feet padded away, down the stairs. Well, that was one thing that hadn't be peculiarly disturbed today. Their family always took their meals together, and for once, she was glad that today was no different from years ago. Angela did not even bother with those stupid, uncomfortable high heels, instead simply shoving her toes into a pair of socks and bounding down the steps, three at a time.

Vestiges of that old domestic ambiance once again graced the house, and the dissipation of that earlier eerie atmosphere alleviated some of her anxiety. Light sparkled in the kitchen and dining room, beckoning her inward, and, unsure of what to expect from them now, she crept silently inside. Their mother was performing her usual routine of fussing, but Angelo and their father were the primary chefs tonight, bustling about the room and following the instructions of the queen bee. Season this, measure that. . . When had Angelo ever helped make a meal in his life? The boy was a biologist, not a culinarian!

_So much for returned to normal. _

"Can I help?" Angela spoke up, her voice quiet, remorseful, in the large vacuum of the room.

"We're just embellishing with the finishing touches," her father replied, with a wink. "You can set the table, if you like."

_If that helps your conscience_, she knew he meant. Angela's father was a man of few words, in which those few words were merely clues to his real, unstated message. Of course they were both displeased with her conduct, and of course she owed her mother an apology, but they weren't making this any easier on her.

She quietly acquiesced, unobtrusively skirting around them to reach the cabinet where they stored the placemats and silverware. It wasn't yet Christmas, no, in fact, that was still several months off, but she decided to select the finest of the china. Anything to try to liven up this oppressive mood, and, smiling in spite of herself, she mused that surely the fact that the shiny, delicate silverware was out would inhibit any crimes of passion. Say, her incensed mother hurling a knife or two across the table at her. Angela doubted the woman would want blood stains on the family heirlooms.

She hoped, however, things would not come down to that. Dinner would end in no more than an hour, and after that, Angela would apologize straightaway to her mother in private. That gave her ample time to cool down and organize her words, to prevent herself from letting loose any other cruel, half-formed thoughts.

"What's for dinner?" Angela asked when her father and Angelo began to bring in steaming pots and pans. She injected pep into her voice until it oozed out like the golden juice from their Thanksgiving turkeys. They could not comprehend that she, unlike them, was not one for external displays of her internal state, and as such, she often found herself exaggerating her personality for their sake. It exhausted her, but if she did not commit herself to the role of happy homemaker, as they desired and even expected, then she would be mercilessly accused of being aloof and uncaring.

"Your favorite," Angelo's lips creased into what was intended to be a smile, but his ongoing frustration with her kept it from forming quite right. His green eyes were solemn and dark, a rarity. Her brother was the bubbly one, not her. She liked to think that she took more after her father.

Inhaling, Angela tried to breathe in the aroma of the dishes that she so loved, but the scents all blurred together in her nose, dulled from the day spent in the cold, and every time she tried to breathe deeply, she sneezed.

"I told you you'd get sick," Angelo teased when he heard a mousy _achoo_ issue forth from his sister.

She slapped him on the arm, and though she pretended to be angry, in truth she was glad that he was beginning to return to his former self. Sighing in disappointment, she looked down at the beautiful foods she could not even smell. Gumbo, shrimp jambalaya, baked sweet potatoes, hickory ham. Generally, Angela was lucky enough to see these dishes once a year, on her birthday. Today was not that day, so she could not keep herself from being suspicious.

_They're hiding something from me._ Did they honestly think filling her gullet with a good meal would distract her from that? She was an English, professor, dammit, and it was her job to read between the lines!

Angelo said, "The food looks good, doesn't it?" He sat to her right, and shortly after, their parents filed in, sitting across from them at the festively dressed up oaken table. No one sat at the head.

"Considering you and Dad helped out, it does look unexpectedly edible," Angela said, snickering under her breath when her father told them to quiet down so they could say grace.

As soon as the "amen" left his lips, forks and spoons began clinking against pots and pans, piling food onto plates and then shoveling it into eager mouths. Smiling when she tasted her first forkful of food, Angela thought that if they were trying to distract her from whatever they were hiding, they were doing a pretty fair job of it.

"So, Angelo, Angeline, how's work? The city?" Their mother asked, and her decision to choose a comparatively safe topic did not go unnoticed by Angela.

"Things are going well, right now. Our proposal for another research grant has been accepted, and in fact, I'm being transferred to the city—well, town, I should say—that's hardly fifteen minutes from here."

Neither parent seemed as surprised or ecstatic about this information as Angela expected. They merely smiled slightly, nodded, and continued to eat. Therefore, she could only assume that they already knew. As for Angelo, he did not sound nearly energetic as he usually did when speaking of his work, and, thinking back on it, he had seemed rather subdued for the majority of their week-long visit.

Angela calmly set her fork down beside her half-eaten plate. "You weren't transferred, city boy," she said, looking him rather coldly in the eyes. "You moved."

"Why would you think that?" He spluttered, eyes going wide. Her father groaned low, and her mother shook her head.

"The only way you would end up in the middle of nowhere is by choice. Your bosses could drag you kicking and screaming, and you still wouldn't come."

He shrugged sheepishly, looking to their mother for help. Angela cut him off before aid could arrive.

"You're hiding something, and I want to know what it is. Now."

She knew what it was, or, at least after the events of today, had a very good idea.

Across the table, her father put his rough, calloused hands over hers. "Angela," he said, "your mother has a tumor. She's going into surgery next week."

Tears fogged her vision, but she viciously wiped them away with the back of her sleeve. She had thought her mother might be ill. Nonetheless, hearing her notions confirmed sent through her a shock colder than any rural winter wind.

"It's not cancerous," Angelo said, "but it is near her pituitary gland and needs to be removed. I'm going to be staying here to take care of them, at least for a couple months. And yes, you were right, I did request a transfer when mother told me."

"When?"

Her mother replied, "About five weeks ago."

"Why did you delay informing me? I would have requested leave to come be with you during your surgery." Did they truly believe that their own daughter didn't care? They all had their disputes, and plenty of them, but Angela certainly didn't _hate_ her family.

The hands on top of hers swirled soft circles into her skin, trying to comfort but ultimately failing. "You did not need any extra stress on top of trying to finish your book."

As much as she often wished otherwise, she was a part of this family, too, and it was a betrayal to leave her out. "I think my mother's health is a tad more important than some insignificant research project!"

"Don't get angry, Angeline," her mother warned. "It was in your best interest."

Oh, how she loathed those entangling words. Her best interest. How could anyone but her decide what was in _her_ best interest?

"I don't want to argue about this right now," she said. Neither did she want to think about it. "I can still help. I will handle the farm for you until you recover."

Her mother shook her head. "We're both getting old, so we decided it's finally time to sell the farm and retire."

Wood screeched against wood as Angela's chair was pushed back from the force of her abrupt jump to her feet. Porcelain plates yielded, quivering, to the petite hands that slammed on the table. Sweaty fingers splayed on the tablecloth, burning, like the rest of her, in hot, stifling anger. "How dare you even consider it!" Angela seethed, "This land has been in our family for over a hundred years, and this is how you repay our ancestors? By doing them the disservice of squandering the ground consecrated with their toil, blood, and soul?"

Her Papa smiled sadly at her, shaking his head, reaching for her hand again but retracting his own when Angela jerked away. "Do you not think it time to let their souls at last lay to rest? As you have rightly said, times are different from the past, and we would be foolish to cling to its ghosts." He sighed. "We are old, dear, and there is no one in the family to continue our ancestors' work. Is it not better to allow the farm to retire in good times than to see it fall upon future hard ones?"

"But _I_ can work," Angela said, squeezing a hand over her heart. Passion circulated as freely and abundantly as did the blood in her veins, and it, too, like that vital red liquid, kept her alive. Now, trying to convince them of her devotion, of her sincerity, she let flow into the open all the exuberant vitality that coursed heretofore secretly within her. They all doubted she cared, when, in truth, it could not have been more of the opposite. She cared to the point of exhaustion, and without the bridle with which she reigned it, all that passion would be to her detriment.

"Angeline, both you and your brother already have well-cemented, prosperous careers," her mother objected. "And any case, you're in no physical condition for such rigorous labor."

All Angela could hear in her mother's words was _You're not strong enough because you're a girl. _

"Why can you not understand that I'm willing to throw that noose of a 'career' into the wind if it were in sacrifice for something I love?" Her voice rose, pushing against the walls enclosing the dining room, the walls enclosing her life. "This farm, this marvelous mirage, is the only thing I have ever wanted from you, and is that so demanding a dream? You claim you have my best interests in mind, so why can you not see that _this_ is the life I yearn for more than anything?"

"No, Angela."

No matter how hard she pushed, those walls would not budge. Slamming her chair into the table, she bounded up the stairs, her feet carrying her as far and as fast from them as possible, into the sanctity of her bedroom. She flung herself onto her bed and buried herself beneath the blankets, steaming tears seeping into the seams of the soft sheets. She picked at the unravelling threads on the old blanket, and as she pulled and pulled, they seemed to go on forever, to the point of weariness. Angela could not help but feel that her strained relationship with her family stretched into infinity just the same way. Perhaps it was high time to cut the threads and begin sewing anew.

Shifting so as to uncover her head, Angela glanced at all of the memories tacked onto her corkboard. A bright, rainbow colored flyer was pinned in the center, overlapping several pictures and articles. She started at it for a moment, puzzling, and then recognition dawned.

_I remember this! Some kids from school and I were going to start a girls only farm and show the whole damn town what we thought of their patriarchy. _

Smiling, Angela recalled the memory fondly, but her nostalgia rapidly began transforming into something much more than that. _I've dug up enough old wounds already, so why stop now? Why should I let this idea remain simply a happy memory? _


End file.
